Not far fromthe Alcrest family home was a seven-thousand-acre reservoir fed by two smaller local lakes. Favored by anglers for its bluegills and largemouth bass, the reservoir’s boat ramps were always crowded from April through October, and its parking lots were often full. After eight at night, however, the location was deserted. Caleb pulled the Jag into a parking space overlooking the water and cut the engine while his father pulled into the space next to him. As the car’s overhead lights dimmed and the displays on the dash powered down, Caleb looked through the windshield at the grassy bank. Not much had changed since he’d last been here. The old bench that had been graffitied to hell and back was where he remembered it being, and beyond that, he recognized the wet, muddy slopes that dipped into the water and teemed with mud leeches.
After a moment spent gathering his thoughts, Caleb exited his vehicle and headed for the bench. It wasn’t long before his father joined him. A towering area light bathed them in its glow, creating a luminescent halo in his father’s dark hair.
“It means a lot that you’d come out and talk to me tonight,” Caleb admitted after a long stretch of silence. “Cutting contact with you was stupid and spiteful of me, and I never should have done it. I’m sorry, Dad. I know that it probably won’t ever be enough to make up for what I did, but I really do mean it.”
Nothing.
Caleb closed his eyes and drew cool, fresh air into his lungs. He couldn’t blame his father. Not accepting his apology was a befitting punishment for an insolent son who’d estranged himself from his family. If his father never talked to him again, it would have been no one’s fault but Caleb’s.
But after a while, Marshall did speak. He chose his words with care. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry, too.”
Overhead, stars peeked out from behind passing clouds only to disappear again. When they were visible, their reflections caught in the crests of the reservoir’s waves, glittering like jewels; when they disappeared, the water turned glossy black and looked bottomless. Without the stars, it was easy to imagine vile, senseless things lurking below the surface, lying in wait. But there, on the bench next to his father, Caleb’s terror was terrestrial. While their phone call had gone as well as it could have given the circumstances, he found himself afraid that he would never be forgiven, and that he’d lost his family for good.
So, like he did in all situations where his adrenaline spiked and his fight or flight instincts kicked in, he started to ramble.
“I just wish… I wish we would have been told sooner, you know?” Caleb fixed his gaze on the water, too terrified to look away. “If we had known, Bo might never have had to suffer like he did, and everything could have turned out differently. If I had known, then…” Caleb bit his bottom lip in an attempt to hold back, but it was no use. His mouth had taken over, and it would speak whether he was willing to let it or not. “Then I wouldn’t have felt like I had my future ripped away from me. I would have had time to come to terms with the fact that I can never have a family.”
Confessing his pain to his father was like ripping off a scab that wasn’t fully healed. Caleb’s soul ached. All his adult life, he’d been a playboy, but he’d also clung to the notion that one day, he’d stop partying long enough to find a partner and settle down. Children hadn’t been a sure thing, but that wasn’t what was important—what had hurt the most was that Caleb’s choice had been stolen from him.
More than a year later and he still wasn’t over it.
His father shook his head brusquely. “There’s nothing stopping you from having children.”
“How can you say that after seeing what Bo went through?” Caleb leaned forward, crossing his arms over his lap. Distress built in his voice. “Aaron seems to be able to stomach the thought that he might pass on his genes and bring chronically ill children into the world, but I can’t handle it. Ican’t.” It was the truth he’d estranged himself from his parents to try to avoid, and now that he was facing it head-on, it ripped into him ruthlessly. Anguish built up in his chest, and Caleb fought back frustrated, panicked tears. “Kids weren’t on my radar, but that’s not the point. One day, they might have been. My future was wide open, and then I found out, and it felt like so many doors shut at once. You could have told us. Me and Aaron. We could have taken it. But instead, we grew up not knowing, and by the time we found out, it was too late. It felt like I’d been betrayed.”
Another stretch of silence followed. The anxious part of Caleb’s mind urged him to fill it with more words, but now that he’d gained control over his mouth, he wasn’t willing to let it run again. Babbling would only dig him in deeper. He was here tonight to make amends with his father, not stir old drama back to the surface.
“I’m sorry.” Caleb shook his head. “I was the one who hurt you, and I should be the one listening to how you feel. I shouldn’t be trying to justify why I did what I did. Can we hit the reset button on this one? I promise, I’ll give you all the time you need to say what you have to say.”
Caleb, who expected to be reprimanded for his outburst, was startled when his father chuckled. “You’re so much like your dad.”
What could he say to something like that? Caleb tore his focus from the water to look at his father. His eyes were set on the horizon, and his lips were a thin, amused line, like he was recalling a difficult but nostalgic memory.
“I want to hear what you have to say,” Caleb’s father said at last. “I want you to tell me how you feel just as much as you probably want to hear why I did the things I did. I don’t think I’m the innocent party in this. Your dad and I made the choice to hide the truth from you when you were younger, but that doesn’t mean it was the right one.” He knitted his fingers together, his hands suspended in the space between his legs. “I regret that we held back from telling you, but it was so easy to keep pushing off. All we wanted was for you and your brother to grow up without feeling like you were any different, or that there was a weight on your shoulders that your peers would never understand. We were going to tell you after you finished high school, then we thought we’d wait until after college. Before we knew it, you’d graduated, and your brother went abroad, and…” He shook his head, his face a somber mask. “And then it was too late. Time slips away from you the older you get. You boys grew up more quickly than I ever would have dreamed. By the time we were ready, it was too late.”
Caleb swallowed hard and looked away, watching as the starlight on the water was robbed by the clouds.
“It was our mistake for thinking that you would stay young forever.” A heavy, emotional quality enriched his father’s voice—tears that would never fall spoken through a smile. “We didn’t know if it would be genetic or not, but studies indicated it might be. Your dad and I were afraid that if we told you too soon, you’d worry that what had happened to me would happen to you—that you’d live in fear that your lungs would betray you, and your body would start shutting down not long after you’d hit your prime. We were afraid that if you knew, you’d treat every day with caution and pessimism, and that we’d lose the brilliant young men that we loved.”
“Dad.” Caleb’s hands trembled. He dropped his gaze only to find that his leg was jiggling restlessly. The feelings he trapped inside rattled at the cage that was his body, demanding to be let out, but Caleb continued to hold them back. He wouldn’t cry. Instead, he balled a fist and wrapped his other hand around it, determined to hold himself still.
“I don’t know what the future holds,” his father admitted. There was a distant, bereft quality to his voice that pierced Caleb’s heart with its barbs, sinking in smoothly at first, then tearing him to pieces when he tried to pull it out. “The only thing I know is that even when life seems bleak, there’s still a chance for change. When I met your father, I had given up on life, and now here I am almost thirty years later, having this conversation with you.” A moment of silence punctuated his thought, and when he spoke next, Caleb’s ears were trained to each of his words. “I can’t give you back what was taken from you. All I can do is ask for your forgiveness and promise that, no matter what, I’ll be there. I don’t want to lose any more time with you, Caleb. I don’t want to miss the places life will take you and the achievements you’ll accomplish.”
Another brief but heavy silence interrupted his confession. Caleb couldn’t bring himself to look away from the water. The emotion in his father’s voice unsettled him, and he knew if he looked his way, the feeling might get the best of him.
The silence ended. His father shifted his thighs, and from the corner of his eye, Caleb saw him lower his head.
“I love you, Caleb,” his father said in a small, vulnerable voice. “I always will, even if you never talk to me again.”
The barbs tore free of Caleb’s heart, and the tears he’d held back fell down his cheeks in fat streaks. Caleb made an effort to brush them away, then gave up. Jayne was right—he needed to get what was festering in his soul out. It would do him no favors staying where it was.
“I forgive you.” It was time to let it go. Caleb squeezed his eyes shut and emptied his lungs, pushing out everything he could. “I love you too, Dad. I’m sorry that I was shitty to you. I’m sorry that I wouldn’t listen. Can we put this behind us?”
“I’d like that.” The reply was simple, but it was heartfelt. “We’ll leave what happened in the past and look toward the future instead.”
Once more, the starlight on the reservoir’s surface disappeared. Faced with the seemingly limitless depths of a dark body of water, Caleb turned his scrutiny to the sky. It was just as dark, but somewhere, he knew that the starlight played among the clouds. From where he sat, the world looked grim, but the light it was lacking wasn’t gone—he simply wasn’t able to see it.
* * *
